Neighbors affect vocal behavior of tropical wrens: a multispeaker density-manipulation experiment.

ABSTRACT: For territorial animals, the behavior of conspecific neighbors sets the social context of communication. Despite numerous investigations of vocalizations related to territory defense and mate attraction, the effect of neighbor density on animal vocal behavior has received little attention, particularly in tropical animals and animals where both sexes produce complex acoustic signals. In this study, we used an innovative multispeaker playback experiment to manipulate the apparent density of neighbors in rufous-and-white wrens, Thryophilus rufalbus, living in Costa Rica's tropical dry forest. In this tropical songbird, both males and females defend year-round territories and sing complex, learned songs for territory defense. We recorded the singing behavior of 24 subjects (12 pairs),

SUBMITTER: Sanchez NV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11461926 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature